Free Cold Copper Tears by Glen Cook

lot. That mess of scars gave me the heebie-jeebies.
    I didn’t want to, but I went and checked the other one.
    He was older. His scars had lost their color long ago.
    I went back to my place on the bed. After a while, I told Jill, “You can’t stay here. Somebody will come to clean up.”
    “You think I could stay here with this? Are you crazy?’’
    “You got anywhere to go?”
    “No.”
    I sighed. It figured. “What about your friend?”
    “I don’t know how to get a hold of him. He finds me.”
    Of course he would. Nobody’s husband wanted his mistress turning up on his doorstep. Had he given her his real name? “Put together what you’ll need for a few days.” Now I had to make a choice. I wanted to track the guys who had gotten away. They’d left a bloody trail. But somebody ought to walk Jill over to my place.
    I glanced at Maya, looking bad in her colors. She said, “No way, Garrett. I’m sticking with you.”
    Hell, it was bad enough having the ones my own age read my mind. Now kids were going to start, too?
    Jill said, “I can make it from here to your place, Garrett.”
    I didn’t argue. She wasn’t high on my list of favorite people. “You have a lantern around here?”
    She told me where to find one.
     
     

16
     
    It was quiet out, but it wasn’t trouble quiet. There just wasn’t anybody around.
    It was after midnight but that doesn’t make much difference most places. The day people go to bed, then the goblins and kobolds and ratmen and whatnot come out to do the night work. I guess it just wasn’t their kind of neighborhood.
    I opened the lantern’s shutter and looked for blood spots. They got harder to see as they dried.
    Maya asked, “How come all the lights in her place, Garrett? She must have had twenty lamps burning.”
    “You got me.” It had been bright in there. I hadn’t paid attention, though. “Guess they wanted to see what they were doing.”
    “She done pretty good since she left the Doom.”
    “If you say so.” Was she going to chatter at me all night?
    “You don’t think so?”
    “Is that your goal in life? To have some guy keep you in an apartment full of dead men? Those guys came with whatever is going on in her life.”
    She had to think about that. I finally got some quiet.
    It didn’t last. “You notice she had real glass windows in that fancy sitting room?”
    “Yeah.” That I’d noticed. Real glass is expensive. I know. I’ve had to replace a few panes. Those had impressed me.
    “The other apartment had them, too.”
    “Yeah. So?”
    “So somebody was watching us from there when we left.”
    “Oh?” Interesting. “What did he look like?”
    “I couldn’t even tell if it was a he. All I saw was a face. It was only there for a second. Plain luck I saw it.”
    I grunted, not giving her my complete attention. The trail was getting harder to follow, like maybe the guy doing the bleeding had had most of the juice squeezed out. The going was getting slower.
    The trail led into an alley so narrow a horseman would lose his knees if he tried to get through. It was not an inviting place. I shone the light in but couldn’t see anything.
    “You’re not gong in there, are you?”
    “Sure I am.” I fished out my brass knuckles. I hadn’t brought my favorite head-knocker. It hadn’t seemed appropriate dress for a dinner date.
    “Is that smart?”
    “No. Smart would be to throw you in first and see what eats you.” Either Maya had begun to wear or I was getting crabby. “How come you’re following me around, anyway?”
    “So I can learn the trade. So I can find out what kind of man you are. You put on a good show but nobody is that decent. There’s something weird about you. I want to find out what it is.”
    Maya was wearing real thin. Weird! No woman had called me that before. “Why’s that?”
    “I’m thinking about marrying you.”
    “Hoo!” I went into that alley without throwing rocks first. There was nothing in there that scared